BBC - Culture - The London Underground map: The design that shaped a city Britain The London Underground map: The design that shaped a city It looks like a cross between an electric circuit diagram and a Mondrian painting – but the London Underground map also revolutionised design. Jonathan Glancey travels back in time. By Jonathan Glancey 20 July 2015 The first section of the London Underground opened in 1863. Over the following decades, a number of Tube maps – showing an uncoordinated network of lines owned by different companies – were published in increasing, unwieldy profusion. None looked like the iconic map so beloved by visitors and locals today. How could a designer fully represent the spread of London's Underground? The fact that there were so many Underground maps before Harry Beck’s famous 'diagram' of 1931 – the blueprint of today’s maps – was proof of a problem that took many years and a great deal of ingenuity to solve.

After all, how could a designer fully represent lines that criss-crossed a few squares miles of central London yet also stretched across what, until as late as 1900, had been farmlands, markets gardens and remarkably remote Middlesex villages? And how could it all fit onto a single map – one that could be folded neatly into a coat pocket? Find our cheapest flights at ba.com Size matters The sheer spread of the Underground network made mapping it problematic. Even in central London, there were stations like Covent Garden and Leicester Square just 200m from each other, while others like Kings Cross and Farringdon were 1.15 miles (1.85km) apart. Outside the centre, the Underground stretched as far as Verney Junction and Brill in Buckinghamshire, rural outposts 50 miles from Baker Street. As maps of the time took their cue from historical precedent, it was thought that these geographic distances had to be represented to scale. But by 1930, it was clear that any map trying to plot the entire Underground network geographically was going to be too big to handle – especially in the busy confines of a Tube station, where shoulder room was precious.

So Underground maps of the time tended to concentrate on lines in central London. They allowed lines farther afield to drop off the edge of the city, as if they were ships sailing through the mermaid- and monster-populated seas of an unenlightened, flat world. Many of these early maps are utterly charming – but not particularly useful Many of these early, artist-designed maps are utterly charming and, rightfully, collector’s items today. They were, however, neither comprehensive nor even particularly useful. Map or Mondrian? In 1931, Harry Beck, a young engineering draughtsman who had joined the Underground Group’s Signal Engineer’s Office in 1925, came up with a solution. It was to become not just a useful tool for Londoners and visitors to the capital, but a much-loved design in its own right. It remains the basis for the maps used today. View image of Harry Beck's London Tube map (Credit: Credit: TfL from the London Transport Museum collection) Like a cross between an electric circuit diagram and a Mondrian painting And yet, when Beck first presented his 'diagram' to Underground management, they were unsure.

Lines running horizontally, vertically or at 45-degree angles were plotted on a grid. Eschewing geography, it looked like a cross between an electric circuit diagram and a Mondrian painting. While it was no longer possible to tell the distance or precise geographic location of stations at a glance, Beck reasoned that this was unimportant. What passengers needed to know was how to get from one station to another as efficiently as possible and where to change between lines. The map proved an instant success In 1933, the Underground, city buses, trams, trolleybuses, river buses and Green Line coaches were brought together under the umbrella of a new public corporation: the London Passenger Transport Board. With a spirit of modernisation in the air, the time was right to see how the public would respond to Beck’s radical 'diagram'. After a test run of 500 copies were distributed from a select few stations in 1932, 700,000 copies of the map were printed in 1933. It proved an instant success – a reprint had to be ordered within a month. Yet the map wasn’t perfect.

Beck had been unable to include the western extremities of the District Line (shown in green), or the rural adventures of the Metropolitan (magenta) beyond Rickmansworth. These design puzzles were solved over many years as Beck improved his map. His last version was printed in 1960 when he fell out with London Transport. Its publicity officer, Harold Hutchinson, took over the design task. Feeling a sense of ownership and averse to seeing his design changed by third parties, Beck fought a long legal battle with London Transport. He abandoned this in 1965 but worked on the map privately, along with designs for the Paris Metro he had begun decades earlier, until his death in 1974. View image of London Tube map (Credit: Credit: TfL Maps) Since 1986, the design has been a corporate task, with names of individual designers – aside from Beck, who remains credited as the originator – subsumed in this never-ending enterprise. The map has long gone global, too. Not only has it inspired countless Metro maps across continents, but it is also a staple of t-shirts, coffee mugs and countless other souvenirs.

Cry me a river That means that, when big changes are made, everyone notices. Over the years, lines have been added including the Docklands Light Railway, the Overground network, Crossrail and the Emirates Air Line cable-car linking Greenwich Peninsula with Royal Docks. Then, in 2009, the River Thames was removed from the map. This had long been its one defining geographic element. When it went, there was a public outcry and negative media attention from around the world. The Thames was back on the map within months, although collectors of Underground maps – of whom there are many – will prize the Thames-less map, much as stamp collectors treasure Edward VIII postage stamps among other design rarities. In 2006, Beck’s map came second in BBC2’s Great British Design Quest, when more than 200,000 viewers chose between such compelling designs as the Mini, E-Type Jaguar and the album sleeve of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Beck’s map came second, beaten to the number-one slot only by Concorde, perhaps the most beautiful aircraft of all time .

View image of Tube map inspiration (Credit: Credit: The Great Bear, 1992/Simon Patterson/Victoria & Albert Museum) Beck’s map and its successors have inspired artists, too. David Booth’s The Tate Gallery by Tube (1986), a poster for London Underground stations, showed Tube lines squeezed from tubes of paint; since 1992, the Tate Modern has displayed The Great Bear by Simon Patterson, with station names replaced by a plethora of artists, explorers, scientists, actors and writers. It isn’t only artists who have been inspired by the map. For generations, London schoolchildren, trying to relieve the monotony of their daily commute, have translated station names into foreign alternatives – with Kings Cross, for example, becoming 'Koenigkreutz'. And many have been able, thanks to the graphic clarity of the Underground map, its bright colours and peerless Johnston typeface, to memorise every station on the Underground network. From games and memory feats to artworks and souvenirs, Beck’s diagram imprinted a very particular map of London on the minds of millions. More than 80 years on, it remains the gold standard by which new Metro maps are judged.

This story is a part of BBC Britain – a new series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to the Britain homepage ; you also can see our latest stories by following us on Facebook and Twitter . 1933 London Underground Map 1933 London Underground Map First published May 30th, 2006 "If you're going underground, why bother about geography? It's not so important. Connections are the thing." (Owen Massey) Part of Harry Beck's 1933 map (left) and part of 2004 map (right) One of the classics of 20th century design is the London Underground map designed in 1931 by unemployed electrical draftsman Harry Beck. Instead of a geographically accurate map, he produced a purely representational diagram with no surface detail except the stations and a stylised River Thames. With its out-of-scale distances it was initially rejected by the Underground's publicity department as "too revolutionary", but a year later they changed their minds and a free pocket edition was published in 1933.

Harry Beck's design - originally sketched out in a school exercise book before being converted into final artwork - has undergone constant adjustment to accomodate new lines and stations and to add clarity improvements. Beck himself had begun to tinker with it for the 1936 version but the illustration above shows how his graphic concept remains essentially unchanged 70 years on. Its success was assured to a great degree by the fact that the tube-travelling public took to it straightaway, appreciating its clarity and the way it gave an illusion of order to the otherwise chaotic city of London. As the London Underground developed, so Harry Beck continued to develop the map. He had to contend with the increasing complexity of the network whilst maintaining its clarity in diagrammatic form - a process he undertook with a great deal of personal effort and loving attention to detail for thirty years. He was known to have a sharp sense of humour and once described his map as "The Underground straight eight all-electric skit-set circuit diagram." Beck (pictured left in 1965) produced his last design for the London Undergound map in 1964.

That his original design has been handed down so faithfully is due both to public recognition and to continuous and skillful nurturing by Tim Demuth of London Transport's publicity department (their corporate morons of political correctness have introduced the stupid name of 'Transport for London'). There are now fourteen tube lines instead of the original eight, and the map is managed on an Apple Mac. Its digitisation makes it easier for Demuth to make revisions in a manner consistent with the diagram's iconic purity. The Underground map is an important marketing asset for London Transport. It's a nice earner, not only as a map but also in souvenir form on a large range of goods from aprons to keyrings to soap. The map is so celebrated that there are many excellent websites devoted to it. The obvious thing to do is therefore to round off with reference to a few of the best. The London Underground map on the web On London Underground's own Tube maps page you can download and print, or just view online, the "famous" Tube map. They also have versions showing disabled access and links to trains and trams.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the London Underground , with not only a geographically accurate version of the Underground map but information about the history of the London Underground, its future, practical help for Tube travellers, information about the different lines, and related links. Alternative Tube maps from Simon Clarke, who over the last few years has researched and developed a number of 'alternative' Tube maps - some of which have proved very popular [Simon's site is currently under reconstruction]. A comprehensive catalogue of Tube maps: the The London Tube map archive from 1908, from James Bow, a blogger from Canada. The London Weblog Directory - a directory of weblogs called London Bloggers written by people who live or work in London, organised geographically by the London Tube map. There were 2037 registered London weblogs at the time of writing. Last but absolutely not least, Owen Massey's "Mapper's delight" (see link at the top of this page) - mostly a page of fascinating links related to London Underground (pedantically referred-to as) 'diagrams'.

River Thames deleted from map in 2009 [Added in September, 2009] In a botched attempt to gain public support by taking useful features off the contemporary London Tube map, Transport for London (TfL) deleted the river in September 2009, to the consternation of Boris Johnson, the Lord Mayor, who ordered it to be restored forthwith. Accordingly, the next scheduled revision will diagrammatically illustrate the proud River Thames once again. TfL, it seems, was concerned that the Tube map was "becoming too cluttered to be useful" which of course rather misses the point after over 75 years. Page last modified: December 24, 2014 Originally considered too radical, Harry Beck's London Underground Tube map has become a design classic. Original 1933 Tube map Now recognised across the world, the Tube map was originally the brainchild of Underground electrical draughtsman, Harry Beck, who produced this imaginative and beautifully simple design back in 1933.

Rather than emphasising distance and geographical accuracy, like other maps, Beck based his on the circuit diagrams he drew for his day job; stripping the sprawling Tube network down to a neat diagram of coloured, criss-crossing lines. Beck's map was initially rejected by the publicity department because it was considered too radical but a successful trial print-run showed that it was just what the public wanted. The result was an instantly clear and comprehensible chart that would become an essential guide to London - and a template for transport maps the world over. Beck's revolutionary design, with certain modifications and additions, survives to the present day and is set to serve London Underground and its millions of customers for many years to come. To find out more more about Harry Beck and his world famous map please visit the London Transport Museum . London Transport - Design Museum London Transport Posted October 12, 2015 -- Updated November 4 A progressive public transport system, London Transport is home to many of the most familiar design icons of Britain.

Share > London Transport From the 1916 red, white and blue roundel symbol, to the 1933 diagrammatic underground Tube map, and the 1956 Routemaster bus, many of the most familiar design icons of Britain belong to LONDON TRANSPORT in its heyday during the first half of the 20th century. In the 1930s the London Transport network of underground trains, buses and trams was regarded as the world’s most progressive public transport system and a role model of enlightened corporate patronage of contemporary art and design. The red, white and blue roundel symbol redesigned by Edward Johnston for the Underground in 1916 and adopted by the newly founded London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) in 1933 has come to symbolise the whole of London, not just its transport system. The same can be said for the diagrammatic London Underground map devised by Harry Beck in the early 1930s, which has since been imitated all over the world as a model of modern map design. In its golden era of the 1930s, London Transport was also an important patron of contemporary art.

Eminent artists such as Man Ray and Graham Sutherland created publicity posters, while Paul Nash designed upholstery fabric for the seats of trains. London Transport commissioned work from noted designers, such as Hans Schleger and László Moholy-Nagy; while the poet, John Betjeman, wrote its tourist leaflets. Many of the most famous examples of London Transport design were commissioned by Frank Pick (1878-1941), a Lincolnshire-born solicitor, who joined the Underground Group in 1906. After expressing an interest in publicity, with the support of the Chairman Lord Ashfield, Pick presided over the introduction of the roundel and bright graphic posters to the Underground before the First World War. He became managing director of the LPTB in 1933. Convinced that London Transport should be an exemplar of design excellence, Pick commissioned work of the highest quality for everything, from station architecture to litter bins. He ensured that it was implemented with great rigour, regularly travelling the length and breadth of the network, often late at night, to check that every detail was up to scratch.

After Pick’s departure in 1940, his work was continued by the publicity manager Christian Barman, and later by Harold Hutchison. After the Second World War London Transport was facing a changed world with rising costs and falling passenger numbers. In this climate there were fewer opportunities for new work in design, although the loss of Pick as a driving force is noticeable. Even so, the Routemaster Bus and the Victoria line stand out as notable achievements of this period. Some of London’s most familiar and best loved designs date from the ‘golden age’ of transport in the early 1900s to 1940 and their legacy still influences the design philosophy of London’s transport today, from the construction of the landmark Jubilee Line stations in the 1990s – notably by Foster & Partners at Canary Wharf and Michael Hopkins at Westminster – to the new Crossrail stations opening in 2018. THE ROUNDEL, 1916 Among the earliest – and most enduring – manifestations of London Transport design is the bar and circle symbol, known originally as the bullseye, and renamed the roundel by Misha Black in 1972.

The first version of the logo (bullseye) was introduced in 1908 with a solid red circle at the centre. In 1916, Frank Pick commissioned the typographer Edward Johnston to revise the symbol so that it was suitable for use both as a company logotype on printed materials as well as station signage. This version of the logo was trademarked in 1917. Johnston replaced the solid red circle with a circular frame and introduced Johnston Sans, the typeface he had designed for the Underground Group in the same year, to spell out the company or station name in white across the central blue bar. The proportions of the new logo were defined by those of Johnston’s typeface, which had been designed with legibility in mind to be read by busy passengers across crowded platforms. The resilience of Johnston’s logo was proven in 1935 when the graphic designer Hans Schleger adapted it for use on bus stop signs. DIAGRAMMATIC UNDERGROUND MAP, 1931 By the early 1930s, the London Underground network had expanded so considerably that it had become increasingly difficult to squeeze all the new lines and stations into a geographical map.

Existing maps were crowded, confusing and hard to read. In 1931, in his spare time, Harry Beck (1902-1974) redesigned the Underground map as a simple diagram. Beck’s design was initially rejected as it was a really radical approach from what went before. However Beck re-submitted his design and it was accepted. Beck represented each line in a different colour and interchange stations as diamonds. The crowded central area was enlarged for legibility and the course of each route was simplified into the form of a vertical, horizontal or diagonal. The diagrammatic map was produced in 1933 as a pocket map and Beck continued to refine it until 1959. His design has inspired the maps of underground networks from New York to Sydney, and a variation of his original design is still used by London Underground today. 1930s UPHOLSTERY FABRICS Concerned that every element of London Transport’s activities to be designed – and maintained – to the highest possible standard, Frank Pick insisted that even apparently minor fixtures were specially made for the new network, including the fabrics to upholster the seats of its buses and trains.

When the London Passenger Transport Board was formed in 1933, most of the upholstery fabric used in its vehicles was moquette, woven by the jacquard process from wool and later a wool/nylon mix backed by cotton. Moquette was exceptionally durable, but the designs were purchased off-the-peg from the manufacturers. Pick and Barman decided to commission designs specifically for London Transport. They approached prominent designers and artists including Marion Dorn, Norbert Dutton, Enid Marx, Paul Nash and, later, Marianne Straub. Many of their designs – such as Nash’s 1938 Alperton, Marx’s 1937 Brent and Dorn’s 1938 Leaf – were used by London Transport until the late 1950s, when more regular grid-based patterns started to appear. 1930s PUBLICITY POSTERS As head of the London Underground Group in the 1910s and 1920s and of the newly merged London Transport in the 1930s, Frank Pick was instrumental in establishing the world’s most progressive public transport system and an exemplar of design management.

Personally passionate about the visual arts and firmly of the belief that a responsible organisation like London Transport should inspire and educate the people who used its services, Pick was characteristically ambitious in his choice of artists and designers to create posters for the network. Many of the most famous artists of the time, including Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) and Paul Nash (1889-1946), accepted Pick’s invitation to create artworks for posters, and passengers looked forward to seeing their latest work. Pick organised exhibitions of the posters – and other examples of modern art and design – in the booking office at Charing Cross Station. Among the first artists to create posters for the Underground Group was the American-born painter Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954), who was commissioned by Pick in 1915, a year after his arrival in London. Highly influenced by Cubism, Futurism and Surrealism, Kauffer introduced many elements of the emerging modern art movement to his posters in a bold, but fluid style.

A particularly iconic poster was created by the American surrealist Man Ray (1890-1976) in 1938, when he juxtaposed the roundel against an image of a planet in the night sky. The 1930s was an invigorating period when the British modern movement was enriched by European émigrés fleeing Nazi oppression. Pick and Christian Barman, Publicity Officer for London Transport, were swift to commission them. Artists included the Hungarian-born László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) and the German designer Hans Schleger (1898-1976) whose 1935 design for the poster Thanks to the Underground is among the most memorable created for London Transport. 1930s STATION ARCHITECTURE The expansion of the Underground network, specifically the extension of the Piccadilly Line in 1932, offered a rich opportunity for Frank Pick and his team to embark on an ambitious programme of construction and reconstruction of stations, ticket offices and termini.

Pick employed the architect Charles Holden (1875-1960) to create a new architectural idiom for the network. “Nothing shall be built, which has not been specifically designed to conform with the architecture scheme”, decreed Pick, who insisted that the design of station signage, furniture and even litter bins should be in keeping with that of the building. Pick and Holden made several foreign trips to investigate the modern architecture of Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. The result was a succession of uncompromisingly modern buildings such as the gleaming brick and glass stations at Boston Manor, Sudbury Town, Arnos Grove, Southgate and Oakwood. The chief characteristics of their British take on continental European modernism were sweeping curves with geometric detailing, bold combinations of block and drum forms, with exposed brickwork and concrete which were starkly modern compared to the suburban semis that were soon to surround them. ROUTEMASTER BUS, 1954 The double-decker bus, which has become such an evocative symbol of London, was first introduced in 1925 when the London General Omnibus Company finally secured official approval for buses with covered top decks.

The first double-decker was the NS-type, but the most memorable was introduced thirty years later when the Routemaster took to the road. Developed over seven years and unveiled at the Motor Show in 1954, ‘London’s Bus of the Future’ was created by a team led by London Transport’s chief bus engineer Albert Arthur Durrant (1899-1984) and industrial designer Douglas Scott (1913-1990). The Routemaster was designed with mass-production in mind, incorporating new techniques developed building aircraft during the Second World War. Following the pattern established by the earlier RT-type the bus was constructed from the maximum number of standardised interchangeable parts, they cut the cost not only of the initial tooling and manufacturing, but of repairs and maintenance too. They also equipped it with the latest automotive engineering innovations such as power steering, an automatic gearbox, hydraulic brakes, independent springs and heating controls. Passengers loved the Routemaster for Scott's distinctive ‘brick’ silhouette, with a flatter front and less prominent engine than its predecessors, and for its appealing interior features.

Scott styled the interior in tartan moquette, red leather cloth and Chinese yellow with soft tungsten lighting and shiny stainless steel fittings. He also finessed such details as the ‘lovers’ seat’ at the back and wind-down windows. The Routemaster remained in active service for nearly fifty years. After several reprieves, it was finally withdrawn in December 2005, although today the Stagecoach company still runs Routemasters on one route, the 15. The Tour De France As A Tube Map | Co.Design | business + design The Tour De France As A Tube Map What You Buy Is Permanently Changing The World. Here's How "Write Drunk. Edit Sober." According To Science, Ernest Hemingway Was Actually Right A Data Designer Visualized All 20,520 Words In "Hamilton" John Brownlee 07.08.14 8:30 AM First designed in 1931, Harry Beck's Tube Map of the London Underground might be the most iconic transit map in the world.

But can a design language used to make sense of the 249 miles of underground tunnels be successfully applied to the Tour de France, the biggest bicycle race in the world, with a length of track 10 times longer? Designed by Visual.ly user cupajoe , this map of the Tour de France uses the London Underground's system of brightly colored lines and bright, button-like dots to show the various stages of the approximately 2,277-mile race. Unlike the interconnected snakes-and-ladders of the Tube, the Tour de France is a straight and linear circuit. This year, the 101st Tour threads from Leeds in the U.K. to the Champs-Élysées in just three weeks. But the design language Harry Beck first came up with, more than 80 years ago, works surprisingly well when applied to the Peloton, making sense of the Grand Départ in Leeds, the subsequent hop over the English Channel, the loop-de-loop through Belgium, and then the circuitous, roundabout route through Spain and France. More incredibly? The Tour de France's massive European tour will make better time than even the fastest London Underground metro.

The average speed of a train in London is just 20.5 mph. Comparatively, a cyclist in the Tour De France will average more than 35 mph—before exploding downhill at speeds that would get you pulled over on the freeway. When it comes to commuting, it looks like pedal power beats horsepower. Never miss a story. Tunnel vision: a history of the London tube map | Art and design | The Guardian Tunnel vision: a history of the London tube map Tunnel vision: a history of the London tube map Share on Messenger Close 26 November 2009: Tube maps have been part of London life since the birth of the Underground, and were initially as confusing as the city itself: a tangle of different lines woven around the curving River Thames. Enter Harry Beck, an LU engineer who in 1931 came up with the radical idea of presenting the ever-expanding network as a circuit diagram rather than a geographical map – so creating a modernist design icon that has never been bettered. But as the Oystercard zone expands, are its days numbered?

Take a look back at the changing face of the tube over the last century Thursday 26 November 2009 07.58 EST First published on Thursday 26 November 2009 07.58 EST Pocket Underground map, 1908 Pocket Underground map by FH Stingemore, c1930. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Pocket Underground map by FH Stingemore, c1930-2. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Portrait of Harry C Beck (1903-1974) designer of the diagrammatic London Underground map. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Original drawing for the diagrammatic Tube map by Henry Beck, 1931. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Pocket Underground map by HC Beck, No 1, 1936. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Pocket Underground map, by HC Beck, No 1, 1936. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Pocket Underground map, issued in September 2004.

Photograph: guardian.co.uk Pocket Underground map, issued in September 2004 Photograph: guardian.co.uk Oyster rail services in London from January 2010 Map of Underground and Rail in London Photograph: guardian.co.uk British Waterways map of canals and rivers in London Photograph: guardian.co.uk The Great Bear London Underground map by Simon Patterson. Photograph: Stephen White/guardian.co.uk How London’s New Night Tube Map Was Made | Co.Design | business + design How London’s New Night Tube Map Was Made Updating the world’s most iconic transportation map ... after dark. [All Images: courtesy Transport for London] Michael Grothaus 08.14.15 7:00 AM The London Underground, or "the Tube" as it’s colloquially known, is the oldest metro system in the world. It began its life in January 1863 with a single underground line running between Paddington and Farringdon—about four miles—in central London. On its opening day it carried over 38,000 passengers via steam locomotives and wooden carriages illuminated by gas-light.

Jump forward 152 years and the single line London Underground has grown exponentially–-and organically-–trying to keep pace with the global metropolis London has become. Today the London Underground comprises 270 stations across 250 miles of track. Its annual number of passengers exceeds 1.2 billion per year , millions of those journeys made by tourists who would never consider visiting London without taking a ride on the Tube, that rickety central nervous system of the capital. Indeed, the Underground is now as synonymous with "London" as Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. It is also one of the most well-known and recognizable public transport systems in the world–even to those who have never stepped foot in the capital, thanks to one thing: the design of its map. It is a map design so influential that it has formed the basis of myriad other metro system maps around the world. It is a map design so influential that it has formed the basis of myriad other metro system maps around the world. Millions of commuters rely on the map to get to and from work and go about their lives daily. Tens of millions of visitors rely on it to move around the city each year.

Any changes to the map can have consequences to the local economy and how certain areas of the city are perceived, which is why any changes are often met with fierce criticism . But it is a map which is once again changing–perhaps more radically than it has at any time in the past 80 years–due to the launch of the new Night Tube service which, pending opposition , is set to commence on September 12. I spoke to Jon Hunter, Head of Design for Transport for London , whose team was tasked with redesigning the Tube map for the new night service, to talk about the history of the Tube map and to find out how you go about recreating the world’s most iconic public transportation map for a new era. The Beck Map Believe it or not, for the first 45 years of the Underground’s existence there was no official map. Instead there were multiple maps put out by the various train operators showing only the parts of the Underground their trains served. It wasn’t until 1908 that all the railways got together to publish the first branded "Underground" map. The first branded "Underground" map from 1908. Yet this map was very different from the one we’re used to today.

Since it was a geographically based map, some stations were crowded together, making them hard to read, while others were left off the map entirely because they were too far out. The stations that were shown were connected by lines that curved and twisted like colored rivers laid on top of major high streets visible on the map. But then in 1933 the Beck Map was published—the Tube map that has become known the world over and used as the model other cities use to make their public transport maps. "It was transformational," says Hunter when I ask him how important Beck's map was to the history of public transit design, "providing a simple way to plan and navigate through an often unfamiliar and challenging environment at the time–although we take underground travel for granted today, it was, at the time, a new way to travel. Often imitated but never bettered-–its underlying principles truly stand the test of time." The Beck Map, 1933. The Beck Map was created by Henry Beck , an electrical draftsman for the London Underground who realized that the physical locations of each station didn’t matter to those traveling underground.

So in his free time Beck worked on creating a map that resembled the circuit diagrams he was used to designing for his day job. On Beck’s map, instead of geographical accuracy, the clarity and connections of the Underground lines were emphasized. On Beck’s map, instead of geographical accuracy, the clarity and connections of the Underground lines were emphasized. The curved colored Tube lines became angular and set against a plain white background; the distance between stations became more evenly spaced and uniform. The geographic became the schematic and the Beck Map became a hit–both in London and globally. Virtually all public metro maps in cities across the world are now based on Beck’s schematic design principles. "Its fingerprints can be seen throughout the world," Hunter says. "[It's] arguably one of the most emulated cartographic styles–its children spread to all corners of the globe–the familiar and comforting brightly colored lines, controlled geometry and comforting simplicity bringing order to chaos in which ever city you travel–-a true testament to its efficacy." Designing A Tube Map For A New Era While over the proceeding 80 years Beck’s map has changed with the times–adding fare zones, adding new Tube lines and stations–-its brilliant schematic simplicity has remained.

It is one of the best examples of how important good design is in everyday life. That’s why you can imagine it’s quite an undertaking when you are tasked with updating the map for a new era. The current daytime Tube map. But that is exactly what Jon Hunter, Head of Design for Transport for London, was asked to do when it was announced in September 2014 that for the first time in its 150+ year history a new Night Tube service would begin running in the capital—in less than 12 months. That didn’t leave a lot of time to design a map that 8.6 million people would rely on. "Without sounding like a cliché," says Hunter, "it's almost as if we were having a child. It took almost nine months." And if London’s new Night Tube service were like many other city’s 24-hour metro services, nine months would have been more than enough time to simply slap a new banner on existing maps letting the public know trains are now running 24 hours a day. But London’s new night service is not simply a 24-hour extension of the entire Underground network. The Night Tube map.

To start with, the Night Tube service will only operate on Friday and Saturday nights. And in the beginning only five of the city’s eleven Tube lines will run at night, with only select stations along some of those lines being served. These factors presented significant design challenges: a separate Night Tube map was needed that was at once both as familiar, but at the same time strikingly different than the day map commuters were used to. "Essentially we knew the map should be very familiar to the user but it should be differentiated enough that there will be no confusion," says Hunter. "The last thing we want is customers confused over the commuter night services during the day, or the day services during the night." To achieve a map that is both different and familiar to the iconic Tube map, Hunter and his team worked through dozens of iterations, taking inspiration from Beck’s original map as well as looking across international borders to other cities metro maps. The final Night Tube map—a dark background, relatively sparse schematic—has been widely praised by the public for its simplicity, distinctiveness, and clarity.

It is a map, Hunter says, that was arrived at because it ticked three self-imposed "critical success factors" the TFL design team demanded: Differentiation From the dozens of maps tested, Hunter and his team narrowed it down to four. One such map used the standard white background of the regular Tube map but with a very dark border framing the map. "Unfortunately during the testing our customers didn't pick up on the subtleties of that and there was a little bit of confusion over, ‘Is this another version of the day map? Is this an engineering map?’" Keen commuters will notice that not only is the owl logo a new design, but it incorporates design elements from sections of the Tube map itself. "That's what drove us to the conclusion that ... an overall dark background was the way to provide that delineation, that separation," Hunter says. Along with the final Night Tube map’s alternating "night blue" background Hunter’s team added two more distinctions. The first was a simple linguistic cue on the header of the map reading "Night Tube". But as London is a global city with millions of non-English speaking visitors, Hunter knew they needed another purely visual cue.

To do that, Hunter’s team repurposed another longstanding Transport for London logo and updated that too for a new era: the London Night Bus Owl. "We've taken the owl, which is quite synonymous with our own organization–-it's been around for the Night Bus since the 1980s–-and we re-interpreted it, so it's quite a more contemporary feel." The old Night Bus owl, left. The updated TFL Night owl, right. Keen commuters will notice that not only is the owl logo a new design, but it incorporates design elements from sections of the Tube map itself: the circular station markers for the eyes and the curve of the tracks for the wing. Even the owl’s beak borrows the dot above the "i" from Transport for London’s Johnston typeface –-the font used in all signage for public transport in London. "These are quite subtle cues, some of them, but it does give us quite a wise owl and quite a distinct identity," says Hunter. Familiarity The next critical success factor Hunter’s team mandated for its map was familiarity–-a seemingly counterintuitive goal considering the importance of differentiating the Night Tube map.

Yet though the Night Tube map is strikingly different in its color pallets-–and incredibly sparse compared to the day map since it only shows the lines and stations along those lines that are served by the night service–Hunter and his team were able to ensure commuters would be able to recognize they were looking at the same transportation system that they use during the day by utilizing recognizable elements. Though tube lives have been removed, the lines which remain form a very familiar pattern for commuters. "If you overlay [the day map on the night map] you'll see that the [Tube] lines are in the same place. The river is in the same place. The only things which we've really moved around are some of the station names, just to make sure we have a bit of design balance," says Hunter, who notes that they did test versions of the Night Tube map that left non-serviced Tube lines greyed out on the map, but testing showed that commuters were only interested in seeing what lines were available to them that were operating at that time.

"Although we might have taken some lines away–-for example, we've taken off the entire DLR, Docklands Light Railway, we've taken off the entire Overground, also the District Line and Metropolitan Line–-the lines which remain actually do form a very familiar pattern to our customers," says Hunter. Consistency The final critical success factor for the Night Tube map was consistency. Its design was one that needed to be easily translatable across all touchpoints, including the large versions of the map on station walls, the half-width "double royal" versions, and the straight-lined Car Line Diagrams found inside individual carriages. "We've tried to be as seamless as we can with all of our touchpoints," says Hunter. "We have to make sure we're using it consistently across all touchpoints, whether it be printed, whether it be online, or whether it be through marketing and promotional activities." This consistency includes making sure the night version of the map is always in very close proximity to the day version, which helps add another layer of familiarity to the new map.

The Future of the Tube Map(s) Though one can argue that the Night Tube map adds another layer of complexity to London’s existing public transport maps since it requires the use of an additional map, it is also probably the first Underground map in decades that most resembles Beck’s original vision for a clean, simplified Tube map. "Of course by stripping off all the information of the stations we're not showing during the night it does make it a cleaner product. It makes it a simpler product. The design starts to probably echo the original intent of the Beck maps," says Hunter, who concedes that many commuters lament that Beck’s simplicity has been lost in the ever-complex day map that exists now. The design starts to echo the original intent of the Beck maps.

"The original principles of the Beck map were never designed for so many lines and additional networks and all the zones, and everything else to be overlaid on top of them so we felt we had a bit more freedom, design freedom, to allow those original principles to make the whole thing fit for purpose, to actually shine through on the Night Tube." But though much time and effort has been spent on designing a distinct, simplified Night Tube map–-and one that has been so well received and praised for its beauty –-it is a map, Hunter admits, that will likely never be around for as long as Beck’s classic has been. That’s because Transport for London plans to slowly add additional night time services to the Underground, including the Metropolitan, Circle, District, and Hammersmith & City lines by 2021, with the remaining Tube lines likely to follow. It also plans to add night services to the London Overground in 2017 and the Docklands Light Railway by 2021–-transit lines that currently exist on the day map. There's nothing simpler than just having one single product.

"We need to make these products simple for customers to understand and there's nothing simpler than just having one single product," says Hunter, who notes that right now the limited portions of the Underground running at night necessitated a separate map–-one which he says that his team "strived hard to make sure [the day and night maps were] two separate products, with their own separate purposes." But ideally, Hunter admits, they’d like just one universal map. "In the end eventually all of our services will run 24 hours, so we won't need to make any separation," he says. "That's quite nice." [If you love the design of the new Night Tube map or Harry Beck’s 1931 Tube map you can vote for them to be crowned one of London’s transport design icons. The vote is open until October and is part of Transport for London’s ‘Transported by Design’ campaign, which celebrates the role of good design in London’s transport network.] Never miss a story. Is it the end of the line for London's iconic tube map? | Jonathan Glancey | Art and design | The Guardian Is it the end of the line for London's iconic tube map? A thing of clarity and beauty ...

detail from Harry Beck's 1931 tube map Thursday 26 November 2009 07.39 EST First published on Thursday 26 November 2009 07.39 EST Share on Messenger Close Might the Oyster card swipe the world-famous London Underground map off the walls of tube stations for ever? From the beginning of 2010, Oyster cards can be used for travel on all public transport services in Greater London including tube trains, buses, trams, suburban trains, the Docklands Light Railway and Thames Clipper river boats. What this revolution in ticketing means is that Londoners and visitors to the capital will be able to travel seamlessly above, below and across the city, as well as out to its farthest-flung suburbs. Only sensible, but what of the tube map? Designed by Harry Beck , an engineering draftsman with the London Underground's Signals Office, in 1931, this colourful diagram has been part and parcel of London life, whether folded in jacket pockets or pasted across station walls, since it was first published in 1933.

Beck himself continued to revise his map until 1960; since then a number of other hands, amateur and professional, have continued to tinker with it. But, because an Oyster-generation map will need to show all the routes available to card users, the design has become too limited in its scope. Mapmakers have had their work cut out trying to fit all the information into a legible sheet of paper. For years, there have been maps on platform walls of the Overground mixed up with the Underground, yet these are scrappy – even ugly – things in comparison with the classic tube-only map. And although there's no official Oyster map as yet, the current Overground-Underground maps give some clue: it's messy. These maps are hard to look at, especially because they are crudely divided into fare zones marked by grim graphic borders. It looks like an enormous plate of spaghetti dropped on the floor. The interactive map you can find on Transport for London's website is even clumsier. Terry Farrell's new book, Shaping London , narrates the many different ways that London has been mapped over the years – even including an example of the capital's canal system mocked up to look like Beck's design.

This is fun (even rather useful), but also highlights the inevitable tension in mapmaking between the desire to cram in more and more information and the need to keep things clear. Although it's true that maps can be detailed while also being items of lyrical beauty, even those of us who covet our Ordnance Surveys can't pretend that they would be much use for someone trying to make a decision about how to get from Sudbury Town to Catford at the peak of rush hour. Equally, although I've looked far and wide, I haven't found a map from another city anywhere in the world that has yet managed to cram so much choice and information into a single, memorable and easily understood flat image. If you have, please let me (and Transport for London ) know. What the project surely needs is another Harry Beck, someone who can make clear graphic sense of so many routes and different modes of transport. Designing a London Oyster map would make a fine project for schools, design colleges and professional designers. Perhaps the Mayor of London and Transport for London should run a competition and see what they come up with. What would Beck himself have done?

A man of vision as well as courage – and a pragmatist if ever there were one – he might well have recommended something drastic, even iconoclastic: tearing up his own Underground map, and suggesting that we begin again from first principles. No doubt this would be an occasion as emotionally charged as the introduction of decimal currency was nearly 40 years ago, but it might be the only rational thing to do. The walls of Underground and Overground stations from Clock House to Cockfosters, Pontoon Dock to Pinner, wait with the impatience of a regular commuter. The World's Best Designed Metro Maps | Glantz Design 12.2011 - Blog by glantz As a directionally-challenged designer who loves to travel, I can appreciate a well-designed map. When traveling to a new city, transit maps often represent the first impression of that destination. If a map is cluttered, disorganized and confusing, then I judge that city accordingly. Conversely, if a rail map is easy to navigate and pleasing to look at, it makes exploring that city much more enjoyable.

Not to mention, the design of the subway map can directly influence ridership numbers and can indirectly have an effect on traffic congestion and pollution. Designing a transit map for one of the biggest cities in the world is no easy task. However, Harry Beck, mastered the art of communicating a complex system into a minimalistic diagram when he designed the London Underground map in 1931. Pushing geographic accuracy aside, Harry laid out underground routes using beveled edges turning at clean 90- and 45-degree angles. London’s transit map set the bar for succeeding maps around the world. It combines functionality with beauty, and survives as an inspiration to designers today. Over the years, transit maps have evolved from geographic representations to simplified diagrams. In effect, modern maps have been exponentially easier to navigate and much better looking. Below is a collection of transit maps that top the list in both beauty and utility. The Map that Revolutionized Transit Design—LONDON London Harry Beck’s London Tube Map is arguably the most famous map in the world. The map’s iconic status is due in part to its exemplary design principles and its utility for easy journey planning. Although geographically inaccurate, its timeless design has become the prototype for most of the world’s transportation systems.

Soft and Simple—MADRID Madrid Metro Map Its soft color palate, thin line weights and use of white space make Madrid’s metro map very pleasant to navigate. Brightly Colored—WASHINGTON D.C. Washington D.C. Metro Map D.C.’s metro system map is wonderfully designed with transfer points that really pop out against its thick and brightly colored lines. I also appreciate the icons that direct tourists to important sites (Arlington Cemetery, the Smithsonian), while others direct locals to commute options (parking lots, buses, and light rail stations). Pretty in Plaid—BANGKOK, THAILAND The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) serving the Bangkok Metropolitan Region in Thailand Bangkok’s metro map resembles a plaid shirt that I want to wear. I love everything from its soft color palette to its faintly transparent rivers and streets. A Bold Background that Works—MONTREAL Montréal Metro Map Montreal stands out amongst the rest with its intense choice of background. Because the city’s rail is pretty simple (with only four lines running in a small area), a black background suits this map, making it extremely easy to navigate routes and transfers. Magnifique!—PARIS If only the actual trains in Paris were as clean and beautiful as this map.

Naturally Pleasant—AMSTERDAM Amsterdam Metro Map Amsterdam’s green and blue topography complement the geometric representations of the rail system. Its balance between nature and modernity is characteristic of the Dutch city. The Romantic—LISBON Lisbon Metro Map This map feels very soft and romantic in comparison to the popular geometric maps we are used to seeing. The routes flow more in correlation to their actual paths and the lines have icons that add character, almost as if the map is telling a story. The Ring Leader—MOSCOW Moscow Metro Map The circular line pops out immediately, drawing your eyes to the center of the city. The weights of the circles for each station are thicker than the lines, helping give more white space to the map. This design clearly takes inspiration from the London Underground Map. A Much Needed Map Makeover—NYC New York City is referred to as the “biggest,” “best” and “trendiest” city for a variety of reasons. However, when it comes to “beautiful map design”—the “Big Apple” falls flat. NYC’s subway is one of the oldest and most extensive public transportation systems in the world. And its map design is continuously in the limelight for all the wrong reasons.

Many feel it attempts to convey too much information in a single diagram—resulting in a congested, overall ugly design. Current version of New York City Subway Map first designed by Michael Hertz Associates in 1979 Over the years, several artists have taken a crack at redesigning the NYC transit map. Perhaps the most prominent and most talked about design is that of Massimo Vignelli. Vignelli simplified New York’s complex subway system into a clean graphical diagram, using bold bands of color that turned at 45- and 90-degree angles. The subway map was published by the MTA between 1974 and 1979. However, the over-simplification of geographical elements left many New Yorkers confused, and the MTA replaced Vignelli’s map with a more traditional, typographic map that persists in revised form to this day. 1972 Subway Map designed by Massimo Vignelli Take a look at the collection of revamped NYC maps below. Most aren’t practical in functionality, but all are uniquely interpreted through beautiful design. Interactive Designer from Google Creative Lab, Alexander Chen, turned the Vignelli map into a digital, real-time instrument.

You can watch the full musical masterpiece in the video above. New York City’s map by Korean design studio Zero Per Zero ZERO PER ZERO, a design duo of two graphic designers in Seoul, Republic of Korea, were inspired by the shape of heart from Milton Glaser’s ‘I Love NY’ logo. Triboro’s One-Color Subway Map New York-based design duo David Heasty and Stefanie Weigler of Triboro Design builds upon the Vignelli-style map using only one color—Florescent red. The KickMap designed by Eddie Jabbour in 2007 Eddie Jabbour designed the KickMap with ease of use to encourage more people to ride New York City’s complex subway system. The subway map acts as a hybrid combining both diagrammatic and topographic features. Jabbour felt strongly about offering his design as the official map to replace the current MTA map. Unfortunately, the MTA was quick to reject his design. Disappointing Design—CHICAGO Chicago Transit Map We can’t forget about our own city of Chicago’s transit map. Though the Windy City’s map isn’t “I-want-to-scratch-my-eyes-out” awful, it doesn’t quite make our list of greatest designs.

Yes, it’s simple to navigate. Yes, it adheres to most of the visual rules we see in most systems. But, nothing sets it apart from other maps, nor does it visually do justice to the great city of Chicago. Glantz Design has its own opinion on how the Chicago transit map could be improved. If you are reading, CTA, give us a call and we would love to show you how your map could look. How would you change the design of Chicago’s CTA map?

Question: Who, in 1931, designed the map of the London Underground?
Answer: Harry Beck